24 March, 2017

Debunking the "One God Further" Argument

One of the major problems with atheist logic that I encounter when debating online is that they often place the God of the Bible in the same category as pagan deities. In order to debunk this notion that they are in the same category, one needs to look no further than the Bible's first verse. Whereas pagan gods are seen by their worshippers as creating Earth while residing in the heavens (and thus are indistinguishable from what sci-fi enthusiasts today would call aliens), the God of the Bible is depicted as having created *both* the heavens *and* the earth, and is therefore not only outside Earth but also outside the universe.

Fast forward thousands of years to today, and science now confirms that there was a time when not just matter but also space and, as Augustine asserted in the earliest days of Christianity, time itself did not exist. There was no space, there was no matter, there was no nature, and there was no time. In order to cause space, the "unmoved mover" as Aristotle alluded to must be non-spatial. In order to cause time, that same entity must be eternal. In order to cause matter, this entity must be immaterial. In order to cause nature — which depends on matter existing in order to exist — this deity must be supernatural. The first three of these attributes — non-spatial, eternal, and immaterial — do not apply to any pagan deity, since all pagan cultures worshipped beings that they claimed created Earth but live within the universe; however, these same attributes are definitely applicable to the God of the Bible.

In addition to the above, the universe is also permeated with over 200 measurements of how it operates, all of which must be infinitesimally precise even to allow the universe to exist at all, let alone to support life. For example, if the expansion rate of the universe were either increased or decreased by one part in 10 to the 15th power, then either A, the "Big Crunch" would already have happened, or B, galaxies would never have developed. If the gravitational constant, likewise, were changed by a similarly miniscule amount, then either A, gravity would be too weak to allow matter to coalesce at all, or B, the only existent objects in the entire universe would be black holes. In order for the universe to have been fine-tuned this precisely from the very beginning, the cause of space, time, matter, and the universe must also have been intelligent, and, since you cannot have intelligence without personality, personal as well.

Appeals to the above natural laws as causes for the universe are futile given that they did not exist before the universe existed. How Stephen Hawking, for example, cops out of this is by circular reasoning: he appeals to the law of gravity as an alleged explanation for the universe creating itself from nothing. Gravity by Einsteinian definition is the force that a massive object exerts on space-time. When there was no matter, space, or time, there was no mass, which depends on the existence of matter, or space-time, which depends on the existence of space and time. See the problem here? Space, time, and matter are the three essential ingredients that must exist in order for gravity to even be logically, let alone physically, possible. It's ironic that people as intelligent as Hawking begin to look like total fools whenever this problem is presented to them.

There's only one entity that fits all of the criteria unpacked in Paragraphs 2 and 3 — non-spatial, eternal, immaterial, supernatural, intelligent, and personal — out of all the countless entities out there that people have faith in, and it's the God of the Bible. The Bible is the only religious text in existence, bar none, that teaches that God created *both* Earth and the universe. It is also the only religious text in existence that portrays its monotheistic entity as highly intelligent and gives the notion that He can make very good arguments to prove that, and Jesus, whom we Christians believe to literally be God Himself turned into man, is definitely portrayed in the Gospels as far smarter than anyone who has ever tried to argue with Him. In addition, Genesis 1 is the only religious text out there that contains a sequence of events that is even remotely consistent with the sequence of events that the cosmological and geological records show. Finally, we see in the Bible (Exodus 3:14) that this deity literally calls Himself "I Am". If there is any name that is perfectly fitting for the self-existent eternal "unmoved mover", it's that one.